binary Los Angeles

binaryLA has moved

2006-01-29T14:19:00.000-08:00

I have succumbed to the single picture format convention of most photoblogs and have moved binaryLA to pixelpost. The main advantage of this format is that it focuses the attention of the viewer on a single high-resolution picture. Although I enjoy the photo essay format in magazines, for a photoblog this format divides the viewer’s attention with multi-thumbnail images that have to click to be enjoyed. The reformatted binaryLA will have more text on photography, planning and popular culture in the city of angles.

PB010127e

2005-12-29T16:20:00.000-08:00

PB010127e, originally uploaded by BinaryLA.

New and Improved binary LA Coming January 2006

2005-10-16T20:42:00.001-07:00

untitled

2005-10-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

untitled

2005-10-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

untitled

Why isn't there more transit street photography in Los Angeles? New York has some of the greatest photographty of this sort, which is perfectly understandable, but in LA there appears to be an almost complete abstence. Well, here is my contribution.

2005-09-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

W: The Nightmare

2005-09-28T20:40:00.001-07:00

antiwar

2005-09-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

Antibush

2005-09-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

Cindy Sheehan

One thing I like about political protests are the homemade signs. These pictures were taken at the Antiwar protest in Downtown LA on September 24, 2005.

2005-09-24T21:25:00.003-07:00

untitled

I was delighted to see street photography feature in the Nike Nichols movie “Closer,” a love triangle dark comedy. Street photography is used a metaphor for “love at sight,” as stated my the Natalie Portman character, “It's a lie. It's a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully, and... all the glittering assholes who appreciate art say it's beautiful 'cause that's what they wanna see. But the people in the photos are sad, and alone... But the pictures make the world seem beautiful, so... the exhibition is reassuring which makes it a lie, and everyone loves a big fat lie.” I hope street photography fairs better in other contemporary movies but I doubt it.

2005-09-24T21:25:00.002-07:00

untitled

2005-09-24T21:25:00.001-07:00

untitled

2005-09-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

untitled

2005-09-21T20:34:00.001-07:00

Fiesta La Ballona Festival

2005-09-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

Stride

2005-09-21T20:33:00.001-07:00

Tickets

Big changes are planned. I am investigating restructuring binary LA with more emphasis on my Flickr Photosteam and new hosting server and photo format. Stay tuned.

2005-09-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

lights out

2005-09-10T16:48:00.001-07:00

Speedway

2005-09-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

Window

2005-09-10T16:47:00.002-07:00

Venice Beach

2005-09-10T16:47:00.001-07:00

Funky Venice Walkway

2005-09-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

Ocean Blue

2005-09-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

Venice

2005-09-09T19:20:00.001-07:00

Drum Circle

2005-09-09T19:20:00.000-07:00

Drum Circle

2005-09-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

Venice Drum Circle

2005-09-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

drums

The Venice Beach Drum Circle is a great example of what makes Venice Beach a good Los Angeles example of public space: No permits required; no sorting by race and class.

2005-09-08T13:14:00.001-07:00

Venice Beach

2005-09-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

1970s

2005-09-08T13:13:00.002-07:00

Muscle Beach

2005-09-08T13:13:00.001-07:00

Venice

2005-09-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

street preformer

2005-09-08T13:12:00.001-07:00

DJ

Labor Day weekend in Venice: enjoying the unofficial end of summer.

2005-09-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

crusin'

2005-09-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

Beverly Center

2005-09-06T17:21:00.000-07:00

Grand theft auto

2005-09-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Sex in the City

2005-09-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

Leeds

I like good quality advertising campaigns. In general, advertising appeals to id impulses in our society and thus is a fascinating topic of investigation and conversation. The proliferation of ads in all aspects of our daily life has visual "arms race," where advertisements are creeping up in the oddest spaces. I do have some concern about
the accouchement of advertising in public spaces but those concerns can be overcome by placement and higher quality design.

2005-09-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

Arthur Adams

2005-09-02T20:37:00.001-07:00

Rocker

2005-09-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

scooter

2005-09-02T20:36:00.001-07:00

Sunset Junction

Silver Lake is a Los Angeles neighborhood east of Hollywood. Inhabited by a wide variety of ethnicities and socioeconomic groups, it is best known as a major center of the gay community in Los Angeles. Since the 1990s it has become the center of the alternative rock scene in Los Angeles.

2005-09-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

Silverlake

2005-08-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

wilmington

2005-08-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

Port of Los Angeles

2005-08-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

Port of Long Beach

2005-08-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

Lomita Gas Processing Plant

2005-08-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles

At a distance industrial landscapes have an eerie beauty. With LA’s sprawl, one does not have to experience the infrastructure and heavy industry that underpin our urban society.

2005-08-04T22:14:00.000-07:00

Mansionization in the Flats of Beverly Hills 4

2005-08-04T22:13:00.002-07:00

Mansionization in the Flats of Beverly Hills 1

The trend of mansionization in the flats of Beverly Hills offends my planning sensibility. These mini-mansions are designed to maximize allowable square footage resulting in a structure with little articulation and out of scale with the neighborhood. I prefer neighborhoods with a historic preservation overlay ordinance, like South Carthay and Carthay Circle neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

2005-08-04T22:13:00.001-07:00

Mansionization in the Flats of Beverly Hills 3

2005-08-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

Mansionization in the Flats of Beverly Hills 2

2005-08-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

Guinness

2005-08-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Primary Colors at Sea World

2005-08-01T21:26:00.001-07:00

New Development

2005-08-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

Gaslamp Starbucks

2005-08-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

The Del

Downtown San Diego is undergoing a building boom. For the past three years that I have been going to the historic Gaslamp district, the pace of new construction and adaptive reuse is phenomenal compared to Long Beach or Los Angeles. Moreover, from an outsider’s point of view, the quality of the architecture and tenants is admirable.

2005-07-31T10:48:00.001-07:00

Jane Goodall

2005-07-31T10:48:00.000-07:00

GIS Map

2005-07-31T10:47:00.000-07:00

ERSI Conference

2005-07-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

Where is your favorite festival

2005-07-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

Map Gallery Opening

2005-07-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

GIS Map

The two developments that I found most interesting at the international GIS conference are the integration of GIS and Macromedia Flash and tagging of photos with their longitude and latitude. The interactive features of flash and the intuitive nature of maps make for a powerful educational tool. Example of this can be found at Schooling Learning. In addition, the spatial and temporal nature of the human experience is most vividly displayed with this Flash map of the US causalities of the war in Iraq.

With the wide availability of digital cameras and GPS receivers, the wide spread use of the linking of these two technologies is inevitable. For city planners this opens up a whole new avenue of opportunities for fieldwork.

2005-07-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

hcm#150

2005-07-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

hcm#118

2005-07-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

hcm#56

2005-07-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

hcm#348

2005-07-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

hcm#193

Each of these buildings is designated a historic monument by the City of Los Angeles. I have created a Flickr Pool to encourage others to document these icons of Los Angeles cultural and architectural history. The response to this pool has exceeded my expectations. A. David Bullock has taken this idea to another level by mapping these monuments using Google maps with a link back to a Flickr image of the building.

2005-07-21T06:19:00.001-07:00

North Long Beach 6

2005-07-21T06:19:00.000-07:00

North Long Beach 5

2005-07-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

North Long Beach 4

2005-07-21T06:17:00.001-07:00

North Long Beach 3

2005-07-21T06:17:00.000-07:00

North Long Beach 2

2005-07-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

North Long Beach 1

For the past two days, I have conducted a field
survey in North Long Beach measuring housing
and infrastructure conditions. North Long Beach
is a modest working class community. The
interior streets have predominately well maintained
single family housing stock. Unfortunately, when visitors
drive though, they only see the economically
neglected corridors.

2005-07-18T21:37:00.001-07:00

Lomita Gas Processing Plant 2

2005-07-18T21:37:00.000-07:00

Lomita Gas Processing Plant

2005-07-18T21:36:00.001-07:00

Lomita Gas Processing Plant

2005-07-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

Lomita Gas Processing Plant 3

2005-07-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

Lomita Gas Processing Plant 1

Contrary to popular images of Los Angeles,
our region has one of the largest concentrations
of industrial activity in the world.  The oil
boom of the 1920s was the first wave of
industrial development for the region.
This idle Lomita Gas Processing Plan in Long
Beach in the heart of Long Beach is a vestige
of this gilded age.  Other reminders of this past
can be found here.

2005-07-16T21:31:00.002-07:00

1849

2005-07-16T21:31:00.001-07:00

Land Use

2005-07-16T21:31:00.000-07:00

Land Use

2005-07-16T21:30:00.002-07:00

Carthay Circle Monument Sign

Bounded by Wilshire Boulevard to the north, Fairfax Boulevard to the East, Olympic Boulevard to the south, and Beverly Hills to the West, Carthay Circle was developed by J. Harvey McCarthy in 1922. The streets of Carthay Circle named in remembrance of people of the California Gold Rush. Carthay Circle is one of twenty historic districts (HPOZ) in Los Angeles. Others include South Carthay.

When planning the development between 1922 and 1944, landscape architects Cook and Hill chose an irregular street grid pattern that produced limited access to Carthay Circle from the boulevards. Amongst the various styles found in Carthay Circle, the Spanish Colonial style is the most popular. Yet no two homes are alike due to the rule that all homes had to be designed individually by an architect.

2005-07-16T21:30:00.001-07:00

Land Use

2005-07-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

San Vicente Street Sign

2005-07-14T06:37:00.001-07:00

Boycott Sidewalk Cafe

2005-07-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

RIP: Venice

2005-07-14T06:36:00.001-07:00

No Commercial Vending

On October 27, 2004 the Los Angeles City Council amended LAMC 42.15 to require a "public expression participant permit" for "activities" on the beach side of the Venice Boardwalk. A lottery was to be used to allocate designated spaces. The intent of this lottery/permit system was to reduce the number of disputes among the vendors, performers, artists and activists for the most coveted spaces. This ordinance has been enforced since March 1, 2005 without California Coastal Commission certification. The California Coastal Commission and City of Los Angeles has joint jurisdiction of the beach side of the Venice Boardwalk and all "development" activities relate to coastal access needs Coastal Commission certification before implementation. I am not sure why the activists fighting this ordinance have not picked up on this fact.

2005-07-14T06:36:00.000-07:00

Free speech for rent

2005-07-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

Towers of Simon Rodia: HCM#15

2005-07-12T19:59:00.001-07:00

Pellissier Building: HCM#118

2005-07-12T19:59:00.000-07:00

Wilshire Christian Church Building: HCM#209

2005-07-12T19:55:00.000-07:00

Bullocks Wilshire: HCM#56

2005-07-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

Wilshire Tower: HCM# 332

2005-07-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

General Douglas MacArthur Park: HCM #100

I believe that photography is an essential instrument in the planner's toolbox. However, the quality of much of the photography we see from planning departments and their consultants are lacking in basic principles of photography. So with this in mind, I plan to photography all of the City of Los Angeles designated historic buildings and places. The City of Los Angeles has over 500 designated "historical-cultural monuments" that define the cultural heritage of this city. A complete list of the Historic-cultural monuments is contained in the book: Landmark L.A.(http://www.lfla.org/cgi-bin/store/8967.html) or online
(http://cityplanning.lacity.org/complan/HCM/HCM.CFM).

In addition, I have created a Flickr pool to invite others to create a photo database of historic-cultural monuments in Los Angeles.

2005-07-10T08:17:00.002-07:00

City Walk at Dusk

2005-07-10T08:17:00.001-07:00

City Walk at Dusk

2005-07-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

City Walk at Dusk

2005-07-10T08:16:00.001-07:00

City Walk at Dusk 1

I like CityWalk. I think some of the early criticism of it as being
elitist and presenting a fake version of Los Angeles has not
materialized. The $10 flat rate parking fee has not deterred the
assemblage of patrons reflecting the class and ethnic diversity
of Los Angeles.

2005-07-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

City Walk at Dusk 2